brown reclusive Chiricahua wilderness
waterless stucco shakedown,
magnetic arid atmosphere of swerving dry lines
becoming endless roads trailing everywhere,
an infinite photograph perpetually procreating,
nested under this impossible epiphanic sky
and a vast azúcar agua bowleg horizon
hums her sweet old song
way long after final footsteps ascend
Dear Ms. Yucca, why meet me here alone
apart from green tree’d city parks
espresso and French pastries
with sisters sharing their kindness
heart to heart eyes showering sweet empathy?
Ms. Yucca, why does this ground ache around you,
your thirsty feet suffering
sun’s searing abuse so worn from dredging?
Ms. Yucca, why dwell in these mountains
trusting more empty promises of better growing seasons,
signed contracts solicited from feel good medicine men
and liquored up county supervisors?
Ms. Yucca, could you and I make our peace,
resolve this heart mind suspicion
that separates your kind and mine?
Ms. Yucca, here before me alive
in these Apache shepherded mountains,
leaves shooting skyward
migrating with familiar rhythms,
sentient being so well poised with answers,
your subtle richness
embedded within God’s ageless prophecy:
“to endure here in Yuccaland,
each single solitary being
must bend nightly
to contritely drink from this cracked
historically resolute
unrepentant earth”
5/21/89
Chiricahua Mts